Monday, 25 September 2017

Kremlin-Watching Corbyn

source: Wiki

All the old Kremlin-watching skills - and speculation - will be in play this week, trying to figure out what the McDonnell Machine is going to do next with its potent position in British politics, its momentum, if you like. There are several puzzles / runes to be read.

Brexit - the obvious one - is clearly driving half the Labour Party nuts. We hear that it's not on the menu for Conference, which on the one hand is quite bizarre but on the other hand maybe shows the machine's smiling insolence. Yes, we know this one cause cognitive dissonance amongst our hordes of naive supporters. No, we're not going to be manoeuvred into taking a position on it! Let the Blairites fume. Apologists for this tactic of deafening silence are already queueing up: Little Owens Jones can't be far behind.

Why such a quiet summer? Not for me to put ideas in their heads, but let's simply notice that Grenfell was an issue that could very readily have been stirred up into something Very Ugly Indeed. Instead, Momentum busied itself in 75 marginal constituencies. Whenever the Inquiry gets into the news, the meejah finds members of "the Community" who say some very menacing things; so the dry tinder is there, all right. Is McDonnell playing the long game instead?

What does the Long Game look like? Because 5 years is such a very long time. As we've noted around here before, even Gordon Brown - in '08 a seemingly nailed-on cert for utter oblivion in 2010 - managed to pull off a no-overall-majority game against Cameron. Does McDonnell really think all he has to do is sit back and watch the Tory party disintegrate?

It's all a bit early for making conclusions: so we should settle back & watch the fun!

I think they are playing a really long game and they're doing bloody well; 1st job - take over the Party. Due to its labyrinthine constitution(s) this has taken longer than expected but it seems to have mostly been achieved. I assume the next stage would be to take over the CLPs. I'm not sure if that would then lead to de-selections outright but they can certainly lead to voluntary resignations especially if they can show it as 'increasing diversity' etc etc.

Also, and this is just a hunch, I don't think Jezza gives a toss about being PM. Sure he'll take it but I really wouldn't be too surprised if he did a year or two and then resigned leaving his dauphin to carry on. Unlike Thatcher with her sins of the Hebrew, no one could accuse Corbyn of vanity - for them, it's the project - no one man and all that.

As Portillo speculated, because the membership has cemented extreme lefties in control of Labour for at least a generation, it's gonna happen within the next 20 years and these guys have been waiting for a century.

Labour developed a few tricks for Brown when they became aware how useless he was.They gave him comfort zone speeches. Lists of "Achievmnets." Lists of tractor stat spending. The great shopping list of success.They also put his wife on first.To try and humanise the clunking brute.And made sure he had a good warm up act on before and carefully choreographed applause during.

They had the best spinners in the business back then. To tell them how to make the most of their oaf.

Tories have never had any such talent to make their oddballs seem normal.Never really needed too. They've been competent enough at delivering a conference speech.Even IDS managed it.

I think they are on for expanding the state in a way that cannot be easily reversed.Look beyond simply re-legalising those trade union secondary actions/call a strike without a vote.How about collective worker representation on the body and a vote that can block redundancies /veto bod pay rises over the average given to all workers /etc.They murmur about expropriation of railways/power/water/gas etc.Look beyond that. Consider the expropriation of all pension fund assets and in return you get the pension promised - or better.

Note that all the people who have said you can't do that have gone.And you can spin this quite well as guaranteed pensions / workers rights etc.

ND - I just wondered why Cameron didn't make boundary changes a major priority post-2015. You would have thought that of all things should have been foremost in mind. Sure, it was party political, but also a question of fairness.

JC a life-long leaver is hinting at Remaing (although we've left, oh yes we have) while his Chancellor is telling us how he's going to nationalise everything even if he can't do it if we go back in to the EU.

At least the Tories are split on principle, not because they're moron.

Andrew - "I think they are on for expanding the state in a way that cannot be easily reversed"

I think a state that records every website you visit (imagine if back in the day they'd monitored what library books you took out), every email recipient, monitors your approximate movements via your phone, and your car journeys via ANPD cameras is already pretty expanded.

By 1947 the state was pretty expanded, but all it needed to reverse it was a politician with testes. Where there's a will there's a way. If only our ruling elite had the will to implement the referendum!

Ignore Corbyn. The man to watch is McDonnell. Just like Livingstone was the deputy leader of the GLC, and then took over from the leader (anyone remember who that was?), once Corbyn manages the impossible, aided and abetted by Theresa May, and becomes Prime Minister, I believe that within one year, McDonnell will take over and the Venezuela Paradise programme will begin. Inflation up to 1000%, tampons unaffordable, anyone who owns a property becomes a partner in state owned partnerships, indigenous white people become a much maligned minority - except for the political elite, of course. And then the great plan comes to fruition when Islington is twinned with Moscow, which is as it should be as it will be ruled by them anyway.Be scared. Be very scared.

anon @ 3:59I just wondered why Cameron didn't make boundary changes a major priority post-2015. You would have thought that of all things should have been foremost in mind

a subject we've often written about here, anon - in anguished terms because the Tories screwed this up all through the '90s (sic) when they allowed a fantastic fillibustering effort by Labour to delay a boundary review then; and - amazingly - didn't nail it down in the Coalition agreement in 2010 (the strategic 'genius' of Osborne ...).

What was done after that, wasn't as dumb as it might seem. In the (correct) belief the LibDems wouldn't support it per se in time for 2015, they went for this otherwise crass policy of reducing the number of MPs to 600, which the Dems did support (God knows why). This of necessity entails a Boundary Commission ruling on every seat which, under legislation passed during the 2010 government, will come in in 2018. Again, of necessity, when you throw all the cards up into the air on that scale, you are bound to get fair(er) boundaries. So - in principle - the next GE will be on those new boundaries

But will that be 2022? or will May be forced to go to the country one more time on the existing boundaries? Who knows!?

The interesting thing is - who has most to lose from the changes? it was always thought to be Labour (all through the '90s and '00s). But after 2015 (with the Labour wipeout in Scotland) it was actually the Tories! (and prob, proportionately, the SNP) Right now, I have no idea who loses most.

Please all put in a prayer that Jezza remains leader. I'd start to worry if Hoey, Flint, Champion and so on started to run the party. Slightly wrong people are dangerous. Jezza and Co though are doing just fine for us.